The present disclosure relates to a door basket for a refrigerator.
Generally, a refrigerator is an electronic appliance for storing food at low temperature in an inside storage space shielded by a refrigerator door. The refrigerator can store food at an optimum state by cooling the storage space using cooling air generated through heat exchange with refrigerant circulating a cooling cycle.
The size of the refrigerator tends to increase more and more and multi-functions are provided to the refrigerator as dietary life changes and pursues high quality, and accordingly, refrigerators of various structures with consideration of user convenience are brought to the market.
Also, a plurality of drawers, racks, and baskets for storing various food in an optimum state are provided to a storage space inside a refrigerator and on the rear side of a refrigerator door. Therefore, the inside of the refrigerator and the storage space of the door are divided by these drawers, the racks, and the baskets to store suitable food.
Particularly, food such as cheese and butter may be overly cooled and change into low quality, or moisture of the food evaporates, so that the food may change in its color or rot when it is maintained at low temperature and exposed to cooling air too much. Accordingly, the food should be stored in a space that can maintain a constant storage environment. For this purpose, a separate storage space is formed in the rear side of a refrigerator door.
The construction of a related art refrigerator is described below with reference to FIG. 1.
FIG. 1 is a partial perspective view illustrating a related art refrigerator door is open, and FIGS. 2 and 3 are perspective views illustrating the opened/closed state of the door basket of a related art refrigerator.
Referring to FIGS. 1 to 3, a basket-shaped milk product storage 6 for storing a milk product such as cheese and butter is provided to the uppermost portion of a cooling room door 4 of a refrigerator 2.
In the milk product storage 6, an about quarter cylinder shaped door 8 is rotatably coupled to the basket of the cooling room door 4 through a hinge 9. Accordingly, when the door 8 is pushed upward by a knob 10 of the door 8, the door 8 is opened as illustrated in FIG. 3, so that milk products such as cheese and butter can be put in and taken out to/from the milk product storage 6.
However, a related art has the following limitations. According to the related art, when the door 8 selectively shielding the milk product storage 6 rotates, the end of the door 8 collides with the milk product storage 6 to complete an opening/closing operation.
That is, the door 8 and the milk product storage 6 made of plastics indispensably collide with each other during an operation of opening/closing the door 8, so that both the front and rear ends of the door 8 entirely collide with the milk product storage 6 to generate a considerable impact. Accordingly, not only a noise is generated but also the plastic door 8 may be destroyed.